IBM Blockchain – Enabling Authenticity, Quality of Local Products

After the recent announcement that Gruppo Grigi would join IBM Food Trust for its pasta line Aliveris, three additional companies in the Umbria region plan to join the network to track their products using blockchain technology: Molitoria Umbra, Agribosco and I Potti de Fratini. All these companies use local, raw materials and operate not only in the Italian market but internationally.

Following the pasta traceability project developed with Gruppo Grigi, the Umbria Food Cluster consortium was born in order to create a network of companies in the region using blockchain technology.

The goal is to help provide provenance insights, optimized supply chain processes, increased freshness, and improved food safety and to help ensure products are produced using the typical characteristics of a specific Italian territorial area.

Gruppo Grigi, a leader in the livestock feed and consumer food sectors, is part of this new consortium together with Molitoria Umbra, a producer that mills durum wheat to make semolina for dry, fresh, artisanal pasta and for bread making, Agribosco a company focused on the production of cereals, legumes and flours, and the oil farm I Potti de Fratini producing organic olive oil.

The collaboration with IBM and these companies will initially focus on providing traceability for Ta Lia olive oil from I Potti de Fratini, Flavum brand organic durum wheat semolina flour from Molitoria Umbra, and pearled spelt grain from Agribosco. Gruppo Grigi is already underway with traceability for its Aliveris brand organic pasta.

The consortium is a critical opportunity to grow business with expanded products supported by IBM Blockchain and the IBM Cloud. The goal will then be to further expand the participation of Umbria Food Cluster to other local companies. This work will be carried out in collaboration with an IBM Business Partner from Perugia, Sas Informatica and the Iktome Communication Agency, which will make the product data from the three additional companies and their production processes available on the platform.

IBM Food Trust will illuminate the entire supply and distribution chain of Umbria Food Cluster Products, from the origin of the raw materials, to the characteristics of the local regions, to the transport activities up to the final consumer. In this regard, a UFC-branded digital marketplace is going to be defined in order to help provide the consumer and distribution stakeholders with blockchain-traced products made in Umbria.

IBM Food Trust offers maximum transparency to end consumers who can have greater confidence on the quality of the food they purchase. In addition, the blockchain application in the food sector is able to help in a number of ways including promoting the freshness of food, controlling storage times, addressing fraud and errors, and reducing waste.

Confirming the importance of these aspects, a recent IBM Study* on consumer trends at a global level reveals that consumers increasingly prioritize sustainability, transparency, and consistency with their value scale: 71% of those responding indicated that traceability is very important are willing to pay a premium for brands that provide it.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.

Gruppo Grigi

Gruppo Grigi, established for more than 50 years, is a leader in the livestock sector, and has enhanced choice for consumers with Food Italiae, the food supply chain committed to protecting the authenticity and safety of its products.

Benefiting from being part of Gruppo Grigi, they are able to trace and manage – in person – all the manufacturing processes of the individual products. From sowing to harvesting, from farms to processing up to the final distribution, all these internally managed steps allow them to ensure ultimate transparency, traceability and product quality.

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